Fallen Leaves
by Moonlit Water Sunny River
Summary: He had two loves, but they died - would die - were dying still in the Heart of the Time War. And so he had a thousand loves to honour their memory, to never forget them.


**I never thought I'd be someone who wrote Doctor Who fanfiction, but I've started getting ideas, so there we go. This is Eleven, by the way, and probably just after the God Complex. But honestly it could take place just about any time.**

**Fallen Leaves**

He had a thousand loves, but only two hearts to break and keep mending, mending over and over again. He had a thousand tears to shed, and still more came, gathering behind his eyes and tucked away in a secret, unspoken place so he could smile and cheer and scowl without giving away his weakness.

He had a thousand loves, and they left him, one after the other. The wonderful, inquisitive journalist; the yellow flower brave as a wolf; the married father who'd been inside his mind instead of his ship; the fiery-headed girl who'd waited; the man who'd grown to love and hate him in equal measure, whose greatest fear was becoming him; the archaeologist, faithful that they were destined, her life entwined mercilessly with his and her messages spread across the universe.

Somehow, he'd become an easy man to love. Somehow, he'd become someone who _fell _in love. And he did so in droves. A doctor with dark skin and hair the colour of night and coffee grounds, who accepted aliens and kept her faith, and who he had loved for less than a day before he'd doomed her. A victim whose mind had been taken by a voiceless demon, yet somehow her mind lived on in _his, _her voice somehow still pure. On and on they went, over and over, stories cut short, lives closed and locked, doors unlived – oh, he couldn't cope, he couldn't cope, but he _did, _because he couldn't stop.

He only had two loves. They had burned, they would burn, they were burning still in the heart of the storm of the War. He had two loves, and two hearts – how could it ever be any other way? Humans were so ephemeral. He could change things, he could _change _it, he could find a way, but he couldn't, because to do so would be to dishonour them.

The Doctor pounded the console as he walked around it again. "Dear," he said quietly, hearing how she hummed as if in question. She was his one companion left. "Dear, please…I…" He squeezed his eyes shut. "Please let me see them."

It wasn't a language the console was supposed to understand. It wasn't a proper command. But when he opened his eyes, there they were. She was smiling even in the usually-cheerless console depiction, full of wit and charm and sarcasm even though she was long dead (no, still to die, no, still dying) and preserved in a picture. He seemed cheerless, standing straight and stiff with his chest out in a pose of bravery, but only the Doctor, the one who'd known him better than any other Gallifreyan ever could, knew the humour behind the pose, that his true bravery would always be in his ringing voice – forever silenced.

He whispered their names, sinking backwards into the chair and letting his happiness at a simple image suffuse him. So, so, so many years since the War now. Still he could hear them telling him not to hesitate. That it was the right thing to do.

That there could only be one survivor.

He strode forward, swaggering slightly as he did so. "Well, my loves, I've changed a couple times but hopefully I'm still to your liking." He slid his hands into where theirs would be, pretending he was holding something more than air and static. "Sorry I've been away for a while. Have you been behaving yourselves? No, of course not, that's like asking if the sky turned blue while I was gone. Okay, have you been caught? Okay, also a stupid question." He laughed, pretending there weren't tears at the corner of his eyes, threatening to fall.

"Say, dear," he said conversationally, turning to her and adjusting his bowtie, "I've had a few, uh, squabbles over this. Kerfuffles. Disagreements. _Insults._" He leant conspiratorially inwards. "_They don't like my bowtie._" A moment of silence. "That's what I said! What do _you _think?" He turned to him, spreading his arms. "Oh, don't be ridiculous. They're classy! A classy thing for a classy man – and don't tell Rassy I said that or he'll try to hire me after all. Don't tell him I called him that either. He's still mad at me over the scrolls incident. I keep saying, I didn't put that exchanger there and I don't know who did –"

He stopped. His voice fell away, and he reached out his arms, trying to stop himself but unable to resist anymore. He reached for her, and leaned forward, desperate to feel her, to hang onto her like he so often had – centuries and centuries of love, guiding his actions.

He fell to his knees onto the TARDIS floor. He was alone. The holograms were gone. They were gone. His loves. His husband and wife.

He clasped his hands to his face. No. No. He wasn't going to – not this time – but it came, a trembling sob that shook every bone in his body, made his hearts pound, made his world fall apart before him. He wanted nothing more than death, but their lives had poured into him, and to die before he'd lived them all through was to release them _all _back into the War.

So. Many. Years.

So he cried like a lost child on the floor of the TARDIS while blue light wreathed around him, desperate to touch and to comfort but just as lost in grief as he was. They'd been her loves too – they had never come off-world with him but they'd walked in her halls and slept in her beds, and she'd giggled with them as they chased each other down the neverending hallways. It had been their hiding place when the War began, the three of them clinging together and using butterfly kisses and warm touches to forget the chaos brewing outside and the friends who were falling day by day.

Now, he had a thousand loves and he shed them like fallen leaves, terrified beyond mortal imagining of his grief lessening and watching the bloodstains on his hands grow as he made himself mourn over and over again. He imagined each broken body was her, each gravestone his, and he kept his pain fresh. It was such a terrible, terrible thing to do but it wasn't like he didn't mourn for the humans _too. _They just couldn't _imagine _his loss.

Oh, he knew he was a monster. He knew that they would never have loved what he'd become.

He called himself the Doctor.

He couldn't even fix himself.


End file.
